IMDb plot summary: A grifter working his way up from low-ranking carnival worker to lauded psychic medium matches wits with a psychiatrist bent on exposing him.
Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, and Toni Collette.
Nightmare Alley, directed by Guillermo del Toro, follows a carnival worker played by Bradley Cooper. He learns the secrets of the mentalists and decides to branch out with the act on his own but finds himself drawn into a much darker world than he anticipated. This is a long movie, and I gotta be honest, I feel every minute of its length. This is the kind of style-driven noir mystery that I know lots of people will love -- it did get nominated for an Oscar, after all -- but for me it falls far short of almost everything else Del Toro has ever done. This color palate is somehow more depressing than anything he's ever done, and these characters are boring at best and unpleasant at worst, and I don't want to spend hours in their company. There are one or two interesting moments -- I like the brief subplot of exchanging psychological analysis for inside information -- but overall I found it just plodding and dull and unpleasant. Somebody who loved this movie, tell me what made it interesting, because I did not get it.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Nightmare Alley < Port of Shadows
Nightmare Alley > In the Company of Men
Nightmare Alley > Iron Eagle
Nightmare Alley < Life of Pi
Nightmare Alley < Bananas
Nightmare Alley < Blow Out
Nightmare Alley < Quigley Down Under
Nightmare Alley > For Your Consideration
Nightmare Alley < Kicking and Screaming (1995)
Nightmare Alley < Confessions of a Shopaholic
Nightmare Alley < Fun and Fancy Free
Nightmare Alley < Guarding Tess
Final spot: #2278 out of 3669, or 38%, which is higher than I anticipated.
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